The American military is looking for another kind of certainty from LOST -- a guarantee of safe passage through all seaways, a right China sought to deny an unarmed Navy vessel Monday in its own Exclusive Economic Zone in the South China Sea.

I really don't think the Mississippi should be under UN control, nor should the bridges that connect the Eastern United States to the Western United States be under UN control.

It's not 'under UN control', it's regulated by a UN treaty.

Furthermore,

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They say it could force the U.S. to comply with unspecified environmental codes, and that the treaty gives environmental activists the legal standing to sue over river pollution and shut down industry, simply because rivers feed into the sea.

The Senate is gearing up to ratify a Nixon-era U.N. treaty meant to create universal laws to govern the seas -- a treaty critics say will create a massive U.N. bureaucracy that could even claim powers over American waterways.

I'd say it's in fact the opposite, considering that we're bound to follow all treaties we enter into, as it says in the Constitution

The surpremacy clause is what it violates, because it gives up sovereignty over the river that runs right down the middle of the United States. I know it can be argued both ways but from my interpretation that is what it violates.

They say it could force the U.S. to comply with unspecified environmental codes

In a legal document? T'would be rather a pathetic one.

Quote:

The treaty allows environmental groups to bring lawsuits to the Law of the Sea Tribunal in Germany, a panel of 21 U.N. judges who would have say over pollution levels in American rivers. Their rulings would have the force law in the U.S., according to a reading in a 2008 Supreme Court decision by Justice John Paul Stevens.

"You've got an unaccountable tribunal that will surely be stacked with jurists hostile to our interests,"

I guess being one of the special club of veto-holding UN Council memebers doesn't count for much accountability, then.

Oh, and the assertion that it will "surely be stacked with jurists hostile to [American?] interests" brings one word to mind: EVIDENCE!

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"The whole theory of the treaty is that the world's oceans and everything below them are the common heritage of mankind," said Groves. "Very socialist."

Oh no! RUN!

God forbid mankind share any responsibility for those things we all possess in common...

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many of the benefits offered the U.S., such as navigation rights, are already international custom

Customary rights do not quite match legal rights that a signatory can be called on for breaching. What is wrong with a little more legal certainty in such respects?

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"The thing is about 150 pages long -- meaning there are exactly zero people in the Senate who have read it," said Groves.

Well isn't that a nice little unfounded jab at the collective intelligence of a powerful group? I would imagine that the sixty-odd senators that have degrees in the law would be able to digest that easily enough. Either that or the reading for law degrees has increased sharply over the past decade or so.

Really now, that article does not at any point quote from the treaty to back itself up, nor does it even offer a link to it.

The surpremacy clause is what it violates, because it gives up sovereignty over the river that runs right down the middle of the United States. I know it can be argued both ways but from my interpretation that is what it violates.

Fortunately for the rest of the world, you aren't the end-all-be-all when it comes to determining the meaning of the constitution.

How does it violate the Supremacy clause? In what way would it go against something in the constitution that the Supremacy clause would become relevant?

Art. VI (2)
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

If the United States becomes a signatory, then it is a Treaty made under the authority of same. If it does not, then it remains outside the treaty and any of its protections and benefits. Far as my humble mind can interpret, there is no conceivable breach of your constitution.

If the United States becomes a signatory, then it is a Treaty made under the authority of same. If it does not, then it remains outside the treaty and any of its protections and benefits. Far as my humble mind can interpret, there is no conceivable breach of your constitution.

Oh, I agree! This, in fact, was exactly the part that I was using to back my argument as well.

Considering how much the UN wants to exert control over us, I'd consider it a given that they would try.

Well, it hasn't really worried America so much in the past now, has it?

It is more like this: the UN is the largest and most influential multinational body. In this Treaty, it is trying to get the world's powers to co-operate to protect a natural resource upon which we all rely.

UN Treaties are numerous, but I do not see any argument that, for example, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child should be abandoned because it 'invades national sovereignty'. Surely, that is another example of the evil worldwide Pecekeeping organisation trying to control and dominate its thrall of America?

And, on that point of sovereignty, it has been well shown, mainly by EnderWiggin, that there is no invasion at all of national supremacy, because your constitution makes explicit provision for precisely this. The US is not being pressed to sign. It has that option. If it chooses to abide by the legal framework presented by the UN, then it signs. Simple.

And finally, though I expect there can be no affirmative answer to this, can you adduce any evidence of the UN attempting to press the US to do something that it has not already bound itself by Treaty to do? For otherwise, it is an utterly unfounded statement.